Flashback February 2015: Firefighters at the scene of the explosion at El Pecos restaurant in Maraval.

A liq­ue­fied gas (LPG) dis­trib­u­tor has been or­dered to pay $160,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to an em­ploy­ee who was se­ri­ous­ly in­jured in a gas ex­plo­sion at El Pecos Grill in Mar­aval in 2015. 

De­liv­er­ing a writ­ten judg­men­ton Fri­day, High Court Judge Ricky Rahim or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion for Gre­go­ry Maicoo af­ter par­tial­ly up­hold­ing his neg­li­gence law­suit against North Plant LPG Co-op­er­a­tive So­ci­ety Lim­it­ed. 

In the judg­ment, Rahim ruled that al­though the com­pa­ny pro­vid­ed ad­e­quate train­ing and safe­ty equip­ment, it was vic­ar­i­ous­ly li­able for the fail­ure of Maicoo’s col­league to utilise stan­dard op­er­at­ing prac­tices and pro­ce­dures in pump­ing the fu­el to the restau­rant’s tanks and for fail­ing to take rea­son­able and ef­fec­tive mea­sures through su­per­vi­sion to en­sure a safe sys­tem of work. 

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, the in­ci­dent oc­curred on Feb­ru­ary 5, 2015, while Maicoo and his col­league were mak­ing a de­liv­ery at the restau­rant lo­cat­ed at Roy­al Palm Ho­tel in Mar­aval. 

Maicoo’s col­league parked near the rear of the build­ing and Maicoo went through a cor­ri­dor to con­nect to the restau­rant’s LPG tanks.

As he was about to con­nect the gas noz­zle to the LPG sup­ply, he no­ticed a white cloud and misty smoke em­a­nat­ing from a leak in the hose. 

He tried to get out of the area but there was an ex­plo­sion. 

Maicoo suf­fered burns to his hands and face and al­most a dozen staff and cus­tomers at the restau­rant were al­so in­jured.  

Four months lat­er, the restau­rant’s ac­coun­tant John Soo Ping Chow suc­cumbed to his in­juries at the Jack­son Memo­r­i­al Hos­pi­tal in Mi­a­mi, Flori­da. An in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the T&T Fire Ser­vice con­firmed that the ex­plo­sion was caused by the leak­ing hose but the source of the ig­ni­tion was not de­ter­mined. 

Maicoo sued the com­pa­ny as he claimed that it was neg­li­gent in the in­ci­dent. 

In its de­fence, the com­pa­ny de­nied any wrong­do­ing as it claimed that the truck and equip­ment were in­spect­ed every morn­ing be­fore de­liv­er­ies. 

It al­so claimed that it should not be made to pay com­pen­sa­tion to Maicoo as he was cer­ti­fied fit to re­turn to work.

In analysing the ev­i­dence in the case, Rahim ruled that the dri­ver did not prop­er­ly in­spect the hose be­fore leav­ing to fill the truck and make de­liv­er­ies.

How­ev­er, he sug­gest­ed that the tear in the hose would have oc­curred while mak­ing de­liv­er­ies on the day of the in­ci­dent as it was in­spect­ed the night be­fore. 

“It is un­like­ly in the court’s view that any such ex­am­i­na­tion may have re­vealed a de­vel­op­ment of an abra­sion or tear overnight in cir­cum­stances where the truck and ap­pa­ra­tus had not been used since the in­spec­tion the evening be­fore the event,” Rahim said. 

Be­sides the leak in the hose, Rahim ruled that the dri­ver’s neg­li­gence led to there be­ing gas in the hose be­fore it was con­nect­ed to the restau­rant’s tanks. 

“The caus­es, there­fore, was the fact that the dri­ver ei­ther switched the flow valve pre­ma­ture­ly or left it on to some ex­tent when the last job had been com­plet­ed and put on the pump as soon as he parked caus­ing gas to flow through the dam­aged hose, re­sult­ing in the es­cape of gas,” Rahim said. 

As Rahim ruled that the com­pa­ny would have done all it could to en­sure that the hose was work­ing prop­er­ly and Maicoo was re­spon­si­ble for en­sur­ing that the hose had no leaks be­fore con­nect­ing it to make the gas de­liv­ery, he had to de­ter­mine whether the com­pa­ny should be held vic­ar­i­ous­ly li­able for its dri­ver’s er­ror.

Rahim made the find­ing as he ruled that the dri­ver’s acts were close­ly con­nect­ed with the em­ploy­ment and busi­ness of the com­pa­ny. 

In as­sess­ing the com­pen­sa­tion for Maicoo, Rahim not­ed the ex­tent of his last­ing in­juries in­clud­ing the fact that he was ruled to have been left 25 per cent par­tial­ly dis­abled. 

“The last­ing ef­fects are scars on his hands and face and lack of full range of mo­tion in his hands. He is un­able to car­ry things for a long time and his hands be­come red and burn/tin­gle itch,” he said.

 As part of his rul­ing, Rahim ruled that the lit­tle over $20,000 in com­pen­sa­tion Maicoo al­ready re­ceived un­der the Work­men’s Com­pen­sa­tion Act should not be de­duct­ed from the dam­ages in the case.

Fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent, sev­er­al of those in­jured filed law­suits for com­pen­sa­tion in­clud­ing in­sur­ance agent Nicole Gillian-Blake, who was seek­ing  $300,000 in dam­ages to cov­er her med­ical ex­pens­es, loss of earn­ings and emo­tion­al trau­ma. The restau­rant al­so sued the gas dis­trib­u­tor over the in­ci­dent. 

Gillian-Blake and the restau­rant’s law­suits are cur­rent­ly be­fore Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad and are yet to go to tri­al. 

The com­pa­ny was rep­re­sent­ed by Kelvin Ramkissoon and Nizam Saladeen while An­cil Moses rep­re­sent­ed Maicoo.   

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Drummers from the Egbe Omo Oni Isese Traditional African Association.

Drummers from the Egbe Omo Oni Isese Traditional African Association.

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